Of course you can always just sit back and wait for the update to automatically download and install on its own when syncing.

Sometimes that can take a few weeks, depending on where you got your Kobo ereader.

Or if you no longer trust Kobo updates you can always turn off Wi-Fi to avoid getting it.

Here’s the main list of changes in the 4.6 update:

Introducing the Manage Books feature:
· Under My Books, you can now select several books at once, mark them as finished or unread, remove them, or add them to collections.
· To get started, tap the ‘…’ icon in the grey bar near the top of the screen, and choose Manage books.

My Books section:
· Enjoy a cleaner layout of information, including the Filter and Sort menus.
· Access options for a book by long-pressing on its cover or tapping ‘…’ next to it.
· Jump to any section page by tapping Go to page at the bottom of your screen.

Reading:
· Tap the middle of your page to open reading menus, access the Table of Contents, or adjust Reading Settings.
· If you haven’t selected a preferred font face, you’ll see the Publisher Default.
· Your screen will refresh after every chapter instead of every six pages. You can change this in Reading Settings any time.

23 Responses to “New Firmware Update 4.6 Now Available for Kobo eReaders”

I see there is still no ability to send notes or annotations via email or USB to your computer. Bummer!
This lack of Kobo is the only thing that keeps me on a kindle and why I sadly had to sell my Aura ONE.

Actually there is a extra feature that you can enable by adding the following two lines to the file “Kobo eReader.conf” located under .kobo\Kobo:

[FeatureSettings]
ExportHighlights=true

Then long pressing a book will show an option “Export Highlights” or something like that, which will prompt for a file name and saves all highlighted passages in the book with any attached notes to a new text file, located in the root of the device.

And what about better PDF-reading capabilities? Lucky there is koreader, but unfortunately it’s a bit buggy. Would of course be nicer to use the standard software, but for now the pdf reading experience just isn’t good enough!

I’m gonna wait to see what, if anything, breaks from this update before I install it.

Ditto that. Presently I’m happy with how things are working. They really should make updates optional. I miss the old homescreen a lot and never even use the new one, just go to the books list instead.

It doesn’t mention anything about the annoying bug people with Calibre-generated sideloaded kepubs in micro SD cards are experiencing with the former firmware upgrade (they’re processed as new content each time you power off or disconnect from PC, losing annotations, bookmarks and reading position) I haven’t had time to check in forums if it’s been fixed, but I have cancelled upgrades until it’s fixed.

“Firmware version 4.6.9960 – rollout stopped
Due to the problems with performance, Kobo have stopped the roll-out of firmware version 4.6.9960. They are looking at the problem. They have not said what their plans are for a replacement release.”

Unfortunately this happens far too often with Kobo. It makes there software development team seem really amateur. I used to make jokes that it’s just one guy working part time. I’m not sure if that’s far off at this point…

I think I would cut them a little more slack than that, though I agree it makes them look amateurish. They are attempting to keep a large number of devices with multiple base hardware platforms all reasonably consistent with their upgrades. I give them credit for not just dropping the older devices/hardware platforms and just concentrating on the new platforms which would make their jobs much easier.

Full disclosure, I am an IT guy myself, so I have some empathy for the developers….

The charging LED is still an issue! With the previous software, the orange LED light stayed on even when the charge was complete. WIth the new 4.6.9995 firmware, the orange charging LED comes on for a moment, then turns off (though the device does still charge). Why can’t they ever get stuff to work right??

Could this update be the reason my kobo glo hd has stopped tracking my reading time? It still updates the number of finished books, but not time read/pages per minute and total reading time… Total bummer…